We Are The Same
by No Green MnMs
Summary: Maura is devastated when Charles Hoyt points out that they are the same. Is he wrong?
1. Chapter 1

You are like me.

In all my free time in this joint, don't think I haven't done my research. I know my ways. I get newspapers. Dr. Isles, we are the same.

We find intrigue in the dead. We dissect. We love to pick em apart, searching their insides with the blade. The scalpel is the only thing that gives you control, isn't it? You dress well, put yourself together. It's an act. To hide what you really are, inside. You're me. You're Charles Hoyt, in a blonde wig and fancy, expensive clothes.

Ya know what else we have in common? We both want Jane Rizzoli.

I felt crippled with fear and crushing despair. It was the first time I had a breakdown like this in quite a while. I thought no one would be entering my autopsy lab any time soon, I just had to get this out.

It was easy to mask bravery with Hoyt, but what he said had struck a chord.

_We are the same._

Although I may not advertise it, my feelings are hurt when people refer to me as "Queen of the Dead". I suppose "Queen" is a better pronoun than anything derogatory, but it makes me feel as if I'm a creeper who reigns among corpses. Then I remind myself, that is exactly what I do. Even though I like to say its for the right reasons, I do find interest in the dead. The dead are my life, as they are Hoyt's life. We have striking parallels in the area of not only death, but life.

It occured to me that I was neglected as a child. It hurt to admit, because I loved my adoptive parents and I know they loved me. But they were concerned with themselves. I don't know why they had chosen to adopt in the first place. I'm grateful, because I know I would be better in their comfortable home and the idea of expenses were abstract.

I often wondered who my real parents were. A lot of adoptive children seek them out, but not me. I don't know if it's time that binds me, or fear. I do not know them, and maybe I do not want to. Maybe I can't; they might be deceased.

I didn't hear the door open, but I soon heard footsteps and my heart nearly fell out of my mouth. "Jane!" I gasped, in surprise. I could tell from her expressive brown eyes, she could see I was crying and didn't like it. Jane sat down beside me, making me look into her eyes. As much as I adore looking into her eyes, it's a daunting task; I'm compelled, and I can't look away.

"Whats wrong?" Jane demanded to know, as if asking me the answer to a crucial math problem.

I cannot tell a lie. I am the real George Washington. I would tell about the Cherry Tree right away. "I dont want you to be upset. But when I interviewed Hoyt, he said we... we might be the same." Immediately, I could see Jane about to cut me off and she had that vein popping in her neck that indicated she was going to yell. I stopped her, placing my hands on hers. "No, listen. He made some great points. We both had neglected childhoods. We both took up an interest in disection, young. Med school, being the … loners, and the obsession with the dead, I can't -"

"You are not obsessed with the dead. Maura, listen." Jane stood now, her face inches from mine. I could smell her breath, thinking that she must have enjoyed a peanutbutter and fluff sandwich moments before. "He is a monster. You are a healer, a problem solver. You speak for the dead. I don't ever want you to compare yourself to him. You are my best friend. There isn't a harmful bone in your body." In typical Jane fashion, she exited before I could explain further.

"But Jane," I said to an empty room. "We both are painstakingly, stupidly, endlessly in love with you."


	2. Chapter 2

I needed to understand. All my life, I had never had the ability to not understand. I'm a cerebral person, and it bothers me to have an end unresolved.

At the end of the day, I noticed Jane was acting softer toward me. Either she felt badly that I was upset earlier, or she had a fourth cup of coffee. "Do you want a ride home?" Jane asked casually, as we walked toward the lot.

"I'm fine. I'm going to go pick up some stuff for Bass. Thank you, though." It was not a lie. It was half a lie. I was going to pick up items for Bass, yes. But after, I would be doing something Jane might resent me for.

I had to talk to Hoyt. I had to. I knew I was just playing into him, letting him weaken me, but he succeeded in making me addicted to the thought. It was nicotine, the idea that I had a seed in me to be a monster.

On the drive toward the prison, I realized I would be fascinated in this case if it was someone else's. Was there a monster gene inside all of us with broken pasts and the genetic makeup to be an odd duck? If the environment went one way, one would end up Hoyt; a crazed murderer. If the environment was carried out in a more positive way, sublimation would occur, and it would be me.

I sat across from Hoyt, still questioning myself if it were the right thing to do, as his sneering, ugly face was bought out to recognize mine.

"Dr. Isles." he said, and I could read the surprise from his occulars and arrhythmia. "How nice to see my soul sister. What have you come here for? Did you realize we are connected, and that we should just join together? Then, we can both have Jane."

I blinked, trying to conceal any emotion I had. Did he know my secret love for Jane? It was a gradual realization, but I had come to terms with the fact that I loved Jane. I would not act on it, as she was my best friend. Still, it was one of my biggest secrets, and it stirred me that he could possibly know. "Why do you think I'm interested in having Jane?"

Hoyt laughed, throwing his head back. I could see a cut on his neck, a gash. I could also see his teeth, yellowing and cracked. "Cause I know you, Doc. You have the same passion for her as I do. Tell me, it's her voice that turns you on, isn't it?" I was silent, flabbergasted, but he responded before I could speak. "Of course it is. Don't you see? We can't figure her out. We hate that! We wanna finish everything we start, and we just can't finish her until we _finish_ her. Catch my drift?"

I was disgusted. I hated how he talked about Jane like she was some object, a puzzle we had to conquer. Yet...

_"You are deceptively complex. I do not understand you."_

_ "If I was a dead body, you would."_

Hoyt must've seen my eyes lower, because he smirked. It was Jane's complexities, the very idea that she relied so heavily on intuition and feeling, that made me want to devour her like a novel. I can't get enough of her, and it fuels my desire for her. My love.

"Dr. Isles. One of us is Jane's enemy. One of us is her lover. We are opposites, because we are the same thing. She is attracted to you for the same reason she repels me. When you want to team up together, let me know, soul sister."

I watched Hoyt disappear like an orange star into a deep sea of darkness, and I found myself sobbing at the table, alone. He was gone so he could not see, taken by the guards.

I must have cried the entire way home. My eyes stung from tears, so much that I didnt even realize I wasn't home.

I parked in front of Jane's house.


	3. Chapter 3

"You have got to stop crying, Maura."

I was a heaping mess of mucus, water, and oil, sliding down my face like rain droplets on a rooftop. I couldn't stop. It was like someone had opened the faucet, and I had been crying since six pm because no one had remembered to turn it off.

Jane had me on her couch, her arms around me in a tight embrace. There is nothing like a hug from Jane. You feel so safe in her arms, so protected. "I'm sorry. I just need to talk to you. I'm so afraid that I'm like Hoyt."

"No!" I was at an angle to see those veins protruding, and it almost made me smile. "We can't talk about this anymore, Maura. You are NOT him." I realized this was taxing Jane, too. Her body shook and I recalled how difficult it was to talk about Hoyt. I know she's still scared, that she still wakes in the middle of the night, drenched in perspiration with tremors.

"But Jane," I sighed, squeezing my eyes shut. "He bought up something else that really bothers me. We are both obsessed with you, because we both -"

I heard Jane laugh, and I was confused. Then I realized what I said.

"You aren't obsessed with me. You're my friend. If that's obsession, then everybody is a stalker." Jane tried to comfort me.

I took a deep breath. "Jane. I am intrigued by you. You are complex. I can't get enough of it. I think about you all the time."

I saw the look in Jane's eyes, and I know she was baffled. I am an awkward person, I'm aware, with a lack of social norms. Still, Jane knew this was over the boundary for Maura-weird.

"Are you going to kill me, or kiss me?" Jane tried to joke, but that was exactly the predicament. Kill, Kiss. Hoyt, Maura. They start off the same (k-i). Same neglected past, same genetic predisposition of high intelligence. Then, they differ radically and continue on that path. They are just words, I'm aware, but I can't help but seeing it symbolically. Hoyt and I had the same feelings for Jane, the same passion. It was just manifesting on those different paths, but I easily feared they could become tangled.

When I did not respond, Jane looked a little frazzled. "Cyborg? You okay?" Cyborg was her nickname for me when I was being unusually strange.

I had no choice now. I had to understand exactly what was going on.

I closed my eyes and placed the cusp of my hand on Jane's delicate cheek. I bought my lips to hers and kissed warm lips that were not expecting mine. I explored her lips until the breath depleted from me, shyly gazing into sparkling, yet curious eyes.

Kissing her made me realize that I could be like Hoyt, but I am not. The choice not to be spoke leagues. That's our true difference; I know better.

I know better, so I have better.

Jane pressed her lips to mine once more and I realized, I had Jane.


End file.
